PS: Regarding the Graphic Artists Guild. It is emerging as the best
business organization going that has a chance of standing behind you
when you are negotiating the jobs that make your living. So far it is
the only organization with the clout to affect legislation, as has the
American Society of Media Photographers. Director, Paul Basista, is
practically a fanatic for artists rights. Join it if  and WHEN you can
afford it. Can you afford not to?  The art world makes decision
according to past precedent. Every deal you make affect everybody else
to some degree.

Think. Organize.

In any case, subscribe by email to the GAG Contract Monitor. It's free
and it's by email. It's the best vehicle for business information going
around.

For instance, I happened to get one of the contracts they reviewed as
"nasty" a couple of months after reading about it in the Monitor. I
negotiated a better deal on reuse rights with this notorious client:
they paid me double the original price in their budget for buying all
rights. They were nice to deal with and we did not have to get
adversarial in negotiating these changes.

You don't have to be a member of the GAG. The GAG will still answer your
questions about contracts and regularly publish the contracts that
artists send them with reviews and analysis. See:

www.gag.org


------------------------
Closing Remarks
1999 Illustration Conference, Santa Fe, New Mexico
October 25, 1999
By Maria Piscopo

"You are NOT alone. So, do not be alone.
Today, we learned how to educate ourselves and to promote ourselves.
Today, we learned to re-invent ourselves. We are not just illustrators.
We
are Creative Professionals and this means several things.
1) Creative professional is not an oxymoron
2) With this new identity we have taken back the business leverage
Milton
Glaser referred to in his video address.
3) We will commit to educate our clients in our professional business
practices.
4) We have learned this education is best done before our next job with
the
client and after the job, not during the job. No one is listening at
that
time.
5) To be a creative professional, we will join our professional
association
TODAY and we will involve ourselves. We are not alone."



Paul Mirocha





--
_____________________
Paul Mirocha Design
425 East 17th Street
Tucson, Arizona  85701
Phone/Fax: 520/623-1515
_____________________
http://www.CoArt.com/mirocha/

"Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work,
from illuminating the fog that surrounds us."
-- Henri Matisse